Sunday, October 28, 2012

WHAT IS "CHURCH"? AND WHY SUPPORT IT FINANCIALLY?

One of the things Kate and I like most about preaching here
is this little book (it’s called the Lectionary) that sets out official Bible
readings for each day throughout the year.

At our last church, the Lectionary was completely ignored
- the Vicar simply chose readings to support the preaching themes he had
chosen, and gave each sermon a bold title that left the congregation in no
doubt as to where things were going – earnest titles like “Why should I give to
the church?” or “What does the Bible say about money?”

It’s clearly preferable to let each book of the Bible
speak for itself. And that’s where the Lectionary comes in. It stops us preachers
from preaching too often on the passages we like. It stops us cherry-picking
key verses that bolster our own agenda. Just as helpfully, it draw together
passages that help to clarify and enrich one another, just as our lessons from
John and Ephesians do today.

Of course it’s still necessary to focus on the real-life
issues facing the church family. Right now there’s a pressing need for us to reflect
week by week on the financial needs of the church. And sometimes the official readings
are directly relevant to the issues that need to be addressed; for example, if
we’re talking finance, the rich young ruler whom Jesus challenged to loosen his
grip on wealth; or the widow cheerfully putting her last penny into the Temple
coffers. Readings like that coming up at a time like this are a preacher’s
dream.

It isn’t that easy for me this morning. Neither of today’s
readings says anything directly about finance. But sometimes God’s Word speaks
most powerfully when it doesn’t talk about the problems facing us, but puts
our understanding of them into a larger and more illuminating context. And this
morning’s readings are a case in point.

The first reading, from Ephesians, focuses not on what we
should do about money, but on exactly who and what we are as the church. At the
time it was written, the church was being pulled apart by cultural divisions
and conflicting agendas – not unlike today – and many Christians were confused
about what their membership of the church meant. And so Paul’s first priority was
to help his listeners grasp what they were really part of.

What Paul wants to clarify for his listeners – and what he
clarifies for us – is that we are a people who have been brought in from the
cold - made part of something precious and unique and stupendous. We have been
brought out of a world that is
distant from God who is the source of all love and goodness; we have been
brought into a kingdom in
which – for all our weaknesses - God’s love reigns supreme in Christ. Paul sums it up this way: We’re no longer outsiders; we’re
fellow citizens with God’s people, members of his household. We’re intimately
connected with God and with one another; Paul compares us to a gigantic
building that has Jesus himself as its cornerstone. In short, we’re not just a
club, not just a charity, not just a self-help group. We are a holy temple, a dwelling
place for the living Spirit of God. Church isn’t something we do; church is what we are.

In our second reading, Jesus himself spells out what it
means to be church. And this picture is a more challenging one, because while
Paul has stressed the privilege of being church, Jesus is stressing the
responsibility. Jesus starts by commanding us to love one another, and the verb
he uses (agapatē, for those
interested) means more than just feelings of affection; it refers to the kind
of practical love that Jesus himself showed when he died for humanity on the
Cross of Calvary – the kind of love that makes sacrifices for others. And when
Jesus goes on to warn us of the hostility that his church will experience from society
at large, the implication is clear: Caring for one another won’t just be a duty
– it will be the very key to the church’s survival and the very basis of its
mission to the world.

And so, to summarise:

·Paul reassures us that we’re no longer outsiders,
no longer isolated from God’s plans and
his people. We’ve been brought in from the cold, made part of a unique and beautiful structure,
one with Christ as its cornerstone, one that brings the presence of God into the
very heart of human society.

·Jesus himself warns that our membership of
the church earns the world’s hatred. But he does so in order to impress on us
the importance of his opening words – our responsibility to make loving sacrifices for one another.

So how does this inform our attitude to stewardship? Neither
passage speaks directly about money, but then neither of them really needs to. Rather,
they show us that in relation to the church there can be no ‘me vs. them’. If
we give to the church, we aren’t depriving ourselves, any more than when we
give good things to loved ones in our own family. Because my family is an
extension of who I am, indeed the fulfilment of who I am. And that’s how Jesus
and Paul would wish us to see the church – as the fulfilment of who we are as
individuals.

As far as money itself is concerned, everyone’s ability to
contribute is different but one thing is the same for all of us: We all know
what it’s like to make hard choices in our domestic spending. It may be a
choice between fixing the roof or buying little Johnny a new bike. It may be
between having a holiday or changing the car or replacing our worn out clothes.
The difference, when we accept who and what we are as Christians, is that we factor
the needs of the church family into our juggling of spending priorities. And when
we pray for solutions, we must expect God to use us as part of his answer.

Let’s bow
our heads in prayer:Heavenly Father, help us to see ourselves for
what we are: A body of people brought in from the cold, outsiders adopted into
your household, and a beloved community that needs solidarity in the face of
opposition from the world outside. Inspire us to live joyfully and generously. Enable
us to see how all we are and all we possess comes from you and belongs to you.
Help us as we struggle to set our spending priorities, and heal the blindness
that so often makes it hard for us to put the needs of the church family on a par
with our separate home lives….

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